USA Today Poll: 30 Percent of Economists Predict New Recession

A USA Today pollof 39 economists show 30 percent predict a new recession to strike the economy soon, twice as many compared with a similar poll just over three months ago.

Further shocks to the stock market or turns for the worse in the European debt crises could easily throw the U.S. economy back into the depths of economic contraction.

The best-case scenario sees the economy behaving pretty much like it is now — limping along, growing 2.5 percent a year compared with 3.1 percent in the newspaper's last quarterly poll.

President Barack Obama
(Getty Images photo)

Many economists say growth needs to shoot way above 3 percent a year to make a serious dent in high unemployment rates.

Speaking of which, unemployment rates will dip to 8.8 percent in 12 months, just below today's 9.1 percent. In the last survey, conducted in April, the economists said unemployment would hit 8.2 percent next year.

"We'll continue on a path of pretty slow and disappointing growth, but probably there's not a decline into recession," says Robert Mellman, senior economist for JPMorgan Chase, according to USA Today.

President Barack Obama is hitting the road to drum up support for his policies, although he admits the economy won't see sunny skies for a while.

"We've still got a long way to go to get to where we need to be. We didn't get into this mess overnight, and it's going to take time to get out of it," Obama says, according to CBS News.

According to the most recent Gallup poll, Obama's approval rating has dipped below 40 percent for the first time in his presidency, and 54 percent fully disapprove of the job he's doing, CBS News adds.